Vagueness in multidimensional proposals

Zhang, Qiaoxi

doi:10.1016/j.geb.2020.03.003

Cited by 3 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Zhang's (2016) work is an exception employing assumptions similar to ours, although the focus differs. In her setting, there is no tradeoff between campaigns on issues: revealing information about one issue does not imply concealing information about another.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 91%

“…• Strategic choice of campaign issues: Although traditional literature has not sufficiently examined information transmission through candidates’ decisions on what issues to emphasize, there is recently a growing literature about this issue (e.g. Bhattacharya 2016; Dragu and Fan 2016; Egorov 2015; Li and Li 2013; Polborn and Yi 2004; Schipper and Woo 2019; Zhang 2016). Polborn and Yi (2004), Li and Li (2013), Bhattacharya (2016), and Schipper and Woo (2019), like our study, analyze negative campaigning.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

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Informative campaigning in multidimensional politics: The role of naïve voters

Kasamatsu

Kishishita

2021

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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This paper aims to investigate the possibility that electoral campaigning transmits truthful information in a situation where campaigning has a direct persuasive effect on a subset of the electorate called “naïve voters.” To this end, we construct a multi-sender signaling game in which an incumbent and a challenger decide whether to focus on policy or ability in electoral campaigning, and a media outlet then decides whether to gather news. Voters are divided into sophisticated and naïve voters. We demonstrate that a candidate's strategy regarding their issues of focus (campaign messages) can signal his or her private information. Specifically, negative campaigning against the incumbent's ability signals the incumbent's low ability in all separating equilibria. It is also noteworthy that separating equilibria exist only when sophisticated and naïve voters coexist. This implies that a fraction of naïve voters has a non-monotonic effect on the possibility of transmitting truthful information.

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Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 91%

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Informative campaigning in multidimensional politics: The role of naïve voters

Kasamatsu

Kishishita

2021

Journal of Theoretical Politics

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“…First, several studies mention the notion of being 'vague' about the party position (e.g. Alesina and Cukierman, 1990;Bräuninger and Giger, 2018;Callander and Wilson, 2008;Carmines and Gopoian, 1981;Downs, 1957;Eichorst and Lin, 2018;Glazer, 1990;Han, 2020;Lachat and Wagner, 2018;Somer-Topcu, 2015;Zhang, 2020). Second, following Page (1976Page ( , 1978 several studies view ambiguity as not discussing the position altogether, for example by diverting attention to other issues, or attacking other parties while not saying anything about one's own position (Koedam, 2021;Milita et al, 2014).…”

Section: What Is Ambiguity? Vagueness Deemphasis and Inconsistencymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Yet, beyond avoiding clarity and leaving voters guessing, there exists a good deal of confusion about the nature of ambiguity. One indicator of this is the vast assortment of names being used: obfuscation (Franklin, 1991), positional heterogeneity (Kernell, 2015), ideological unpredictability (Rogowski and Tucker, 2018), positional blurring (Han, 2020; Rovny, 2012; Rovny and Polk, 2020), evasiveness (Orr and Burkins, 1976), issue avoidance (Thomas, 1991), vagueness (Zhang, 2020) and ambivalence (Nasr, 2020b). Several others refer to ambiguity’s opposite: clarity (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Is there clarity in ambiguity? A literature review of party positional ambiguity

Lefevere

2023

Party Politics

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The issue positions of political actors are often ambiguous, resulting in uncertainty on the part of voters. Such ambiguity constitutes a challenge to representation, as it prevents voters from getting a clear understanding of parties’ positions. Ironically, despite growing interest in the concept, the concept itself is remarkably ambiguous: different studies use different conceptualisations of ambiguity, which hampers theory integration. This paper proposes a three-dimensional conceptualization of ambiguity: party positions are ambiguous to the extent that parties deemphasize them, remain vague or inconsistent on them. A review of 103 studies establishes the prevalence of these three dimensions in the literature, shows that most studies focus on a single dimension, and reveals lacunae in the current research on ambiguity. Based on the three-dimensional conceptualisation, the paper then develops a preliminary framework on the causes of ambiguity, outlines key gaps in the literature and suggests promising avenues of theory development.

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“…the example above with perfectly correlated types, where this is not true for the given justifying sequence). 21 Given this discussion, we only have to prove that: 21 Suppose that there is a sequence of ε k , δ k , σ k such that σ k is part of an equilibrium of the (σ, δ k ) perturbed game; it is ε k -close to σ * , lim k→∞ ε k = lim k→∞ δ k = 0 and lim k→∞ δ k σk > 0. Consider an important signal pair m and a t which must get 0 probability under unprejudiced beliefs, i.e.,…”

Section: Proof Of Lemmamentioning

confidence: 99%